"Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive"
About this Quote
Schuller’s line lands like a pastoral pep talk, but its ambition is bigger than mere self-help: it reframes goal-setting as spiritual triage. “Absolutely necessary” borrows the language of oxygen and medicine, not productivity hacks. The move is rhetorical and strategic. If goals are framed as optional lifestyle accessories, people can postpone them indefinitely; if goals are framed as essential to being “alive,” postponement starts to look like slow self-erasure.
The subtext is classic mid-to-late 20th-century American motivational Christianity: faith expressed through forward motion, doubt treated less as theological crisis than as stalled momentum. Schuller’s ministry, built around the optimism of the Crystal Cathedral era, often translated religious assurance into practical uplift. In that context, “goals” become a stand-in for vocation, purpose, even salvation, stripped of doctrinal friction and packaged as an accessible, almost civic virtue. You don’t have to argue about sin or grace; you just have to keep moving toward something.
The line also smuggles in a quiet critique of modern drift. If you feel numb, Schuller implies, it might not be because the world is cruel or confusing; it might be because you’ve lost a concrete horizon. That’s comforting and bracing at once. It offers agency to the weary, while subtly placing responsibility back on the individual: staying “alive” is not only a matter of circumstances, but of chosen direction.
The subtext is classic mid-to-late 20th-century American motivational Christianity: faith expressed through forward motion, doubt treated less as theological crisis than as stalled momentum. Schuller’s ministry, built around the optimism of the Crystal Cathedral era, often translated religious assurance into practical uplift. In that context, “goals” become a stand-in for vocation, purpose, even salvation, stripped of doctrinal friction and packaged as an accessible, almost civic virtue. You don’t have to argue about sin or grace; you just have to keep moving toward something.
The line also smuggles in a quiet critique of modern drift. If you feel numb, Schuller implies, it might not be because the world is cruel or confusing; it might be because you’ve lost a concrete horizon. That’s comforting and bracing at once. It offers agency to the weary, while subtly placing responsibility back on the individual: staying “alive” is not only a matter of circumstances, but of chosen direction.
Quote Details
| Topic | Goal Setting |
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